


Found Family

by IceQueen1



Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Emotional Whump, Found Family Bingo, Gen, Mentions of PTSD, Nothing is graphic but I like to warn people, Poor Thomas, Pre series, Protective Nuzo, Protective Rick, Protective TC, Road Trip, Thomas Whump, mentions of CPTSD, post POW, team fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21678811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceQueen1/pseuds/IceQueen1
Summary: Similar to my Bad Things Happen works, this is my Found Family Bingo card. Each chapter is a different box on my bingo card, every chapter is a stand alone and complete on its own. I just don't want to post them as individual stories.Chapter 1: Road Trip
Relationships: Theodore "T.C." Calvin & Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV & Orville Wilbur Richard "Rick" Wright, Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV & Sebastian Nuzo
Comments: 32
Kudos: 118





	Found Family

**Author's Note:**

> Because nothing motivates like aggravation: I give you Found Family, my favorite trope, with my favorite guys. Takes place several months after their time as POW's in Afghanistan, but nothing is graphically depicted about their time there. I've been beating up on the guys so much, I figured they deserve a break. Also, FYI, inbound flights like theirs wouldn't be sent to a civilian airport, they would've been sent to a military base, but since that made it decidedly less fun, I decided to break with reality. And, as always: thank you to gaelicspirit and blazeofobscurity for their input!

Rick tugged at the stiff collar of his dress blues for the umpteeth time, stretching the starched material a little further every time. The fabric no longer lined up to make an even line, and the top button was in danger of popping loose. His face was starting to itch from his five o’clock shadow, and the colonel had made it abundantly clear that he was to shave before they were picked up by their escort, but after 18 months and 11 days of no shaving, he just felt naked without at least some scruff.

Besides.

Clean shaven he looked like he was 12.

Well, used to. The rounded features he’d had almost his entire adult life that had bartenders carding him well into his thirties – a source of never ending amusement for Nuzo and TC and a shared affliction for Thomas – were gone. They’d been out of the Valley for almost four months now, but weight and muscle were slow to return.

“Why in the _fuck_ do we have to stay in our dress uniforms for this bullshit?” he grumbled. The uniforms were never what one would call _roomy_ but now they just felt like woolen weighted blankets slowly suffocating him. With the high collar, it felt like a really weak guy trying to strangle him _all day_. It didn’t allow for slouching or raising arms or even stretching, and Rick had to resist the urge to gnaw on the collar that jabbed uncomfortably at the underside of his chin. “Why do we even have to _do_ this bullshit?”

TC heaved a long suffering sigh of someone who’d had to explain to a whiny toddler one too many times already – “because we’re a big deal. People want some good news for a change, and we’re it.”

“If people want a happy story, they can fucking watch the Hallmark Channel,” Rick growled. “This is the _last_ of things I want to do on my To Do list.”

TC played along. He looked utterly unbothered by his uniform, the new Major insignia gleaming in the midmorning sun. “Oh yeah? What’s above it?”

“Chug a bottle of bleach, for starters,” Rick said.

The abrupt bark of laughter at his shoulder was worth the dark scowl from Nuzo and TC.

Thomas looked better than he had, but that was a pretty low bar. The same missing baby fat from Rick’s cheeks hollowed out Thomas’s entire face, making him look gaunt and worn. His hair was still too long for regs, but the admiralty let it slide, if only because Thomas wouldn’t let anyone close enough with a pair of scissors to cut it. He still wasn’t talking much, and rarely strayed any further than a few feet from any of them, but at least he was mobile. And alive.

He fidgeted with his pristine white uniform, pulling absently at the sleeves every few minutes to cover up the still healing skin graft scars.

“That’s a corker of a To Do list, brother,” TC said easily. “Anything else?”

“Well, if we’re still talking ‘Things I Would Rather Do Than a Press Tour’, then I’m going to have say eating a nest of spiders, getting kicked in the teeth by a mule, having recreational surgery to remove a testicle,” he animatedly counted off on his fingers as he prattled off worse and worse things, ignoring Nuzo’s eye rolling and TC’s look of abject disgust while watching Thomas’s smile grow to the point it crinkled the corners of his eyes. _Worth it_ , Rick thought. 

“Is there anything actually _fun_ on this list of yours?” TC interrupted before Rick could come up with worse things.

“Food,” Rick said. “I plan to eat myself stupid now that we’re out of that godforsaken hospital. And I’m sorry, but German food is not my thing. I want an Americanized pizza, with something gross for toppings. I want whatever the hell _that_ thing is,” he pointed to a six foot tall advertisement for something pink from Starbucks. “I want an all-American hot dog made from kangaroo meat and old boots.”

“That is _not_ what hot dogs are made of,” TC sighed, making a face. “Shut up before you ruin all the things I’ve been looking forward to.”

They were sitting in the VIP lounge of LaGuardia, waiting on a ‘personal escort’ to some talk show – Rick honestly hadn’t been paying any attention when the general spoke. Fallon? Kimmel? SNL? Something that was supposed to impress him, and instead all Rick heard was ‘the first time you’ve been on American soil in over two years, and for the next six weeks, we have your entire lives mapped out for you – where you eat, where you sleep, who you talk to’ and he couldn’t shake the feeling it sounded suspiciously like they were still prisoners.

Just fewer bars and indoor plumbing.

They hadn’t been home in over two years – Rick hadn’t been state side in almost three. He’d been in the middle of back to back tours when they were captured. He almost forgot what it sounded like to hear people speaking primarily in a language he understood.

But his nerves were far from soothed just stepping onto American soil. They’d spent weeks in Germany recovering, trying to undo the damage done in a year a half, and Rick felt like it was like slapping a new coat of paint on rust – looked pretty on the outside, while everything still rotted away underneath.

They were flown first class from Bagram. Well, first from Bagram to the UAE, and _then_ to the USA. The comfy seats didn’t mean much when he had to sit in the most uncomfortable uniform ever made for thirteen hours, with the military escort reminding them they weren’t allowed to drink in uniform.

When Rick had threatened to strip down then and there, the escort had relented, but he’d caught the exaggeratedly disappointed looks from the stewardesses. He’d smiled as they refilled his drink when out of the blue the thought struck him so hard he’d flinched, almost spilling it – _would they still smile if they saw the scars_?

He’d avoided any further attempts at conversation with them, just the general pleases and thank yous for service and tried not to throw up.

Nuzo laughed, interrupting the dark line of thoughts. “You idiots are gonna be the one doing the junket, not me.” He elbowed Thomas with half his usual force and tried not to let the hurt show when Thomas still noticeably flinched. “I guess married man, father of one doesn’t interest the people like three singles ready to mingle.”

“Don’t be hatin’ ‘cause we have the celebrity looks,” TC joked, fussing with his own dress blues that were still pristine.

“Yeah,” Rick piped in, slinging his arm around TC’s shoulders. “Look at these mugs. We’re gorgeous. And you somehow still have a bald head despite being stuck in a cave for 18 months and 11 days without access to a razor. Who would _you_ want on camera?” He smiled broadly.

“It’s because Lara said no,” Thomas said quietly, before Nuzo could reply. He barely met Nuzo’s gaze, dark brown eyes looking away even before they connected. “And everyone is afraid of Lara.”

Nuzo stared for a moment. They all did. It was the first attempt at humor – _actual_ humor, not dark, gallows jokes that made the therapists scribble madly in their notebooks to up his meds – since the Valley.

The ghost of Thomas’s former grin faltered, those same dark eyes that spoke more than the man did himself these days shifting away suddenly as he bit his lip, suddenly unsure if he’d overstepped an imaginary line.

It was more than a little crushing to see someone who once spoke so freely stop and second guess almost everything they said. Even to their friends. 

Rick saved him.

Seemed like he was doing that a lot lately. But it gave him a purpose – a mission. And isn’t that what the counselor kept saying returning servicemen struggled with? A lack of purpose in the absence of mission?

Guess they were saving each other still.

“Thomas has a point, Nuz,” Rick said. “Lara is a lovely and _terrifying_ woman. No fair getting her to spring you.”

“Are you trying to tell me that Lara, love of my life, sun in my sky, to whom the angels pale in comparison, is _intimidating_ enough that she can bully an Admiral into letting her beloved husband out of an unwanted assignment?” Nuzo put a hand over his ribbon rack, mouth opened in feigned shock before shrugging one shoulder in agreement. “Damn right she is.”

The frightened rabbit look faded slowly from Thomas’s expression as they continued to banter back and forth, the familiar rhythm of their teasing soothing frazzled nerves better than any therapy. It worked in the cave, it worked at the airport.

TC and Nuzo were still talking, Rick occasionally butting in with an opinion that no one asked for or needed, just to keep things lively. But mostly he kept an eye on Thomas.

Thomas, whose attention waned easily these days, and more often than not, drifted back to less pleasant times. He fidgeted in place almost constantly, clenching and unclenching his hands, only following the conversation when voices were raised and even then, only to make sure it wasn’t a _danger_ loud, before staring off into space again. The press conference they’d already had in Bagram was a nightmare – _everyone_ wanted to talk to Thomas.

And Thomas held his own for a while. He really did. But the questions started to get a little _too_ personal. Once he’d answered about finding something that let him help people, now that they were being early retired from their military service, the reporters took it as an invitation to ask him more invasive and personal questions that somehow also still made political statements out of it – like “Does that mean you don’t agree with the US’s involvement with Afghanistan?”, or “Do you believe that the military presence _isn’t_ helping people?”

Rick was all ready to come to his brother’s aide, but TC beat him to the punch with a solid, rumbling: “You’re gonna ask a man who went through hell to solve a war that’s been going on since before we left Africa as a species?”

The following “get fucked” that even had flustered Thomas laughing because TC rarely _ever_ swore, even in the Cave, probably had more to do with the abrupt end to the questioning, but…eh. It was worth the ass chewing from the higher ups.

Now he was starting to fidget again, despite the familiar bantering, pulling at invisible threads on his uniform as he tried not to make the constant rolling of his shoulders obvious.

“I’m bored stiff. You wanna come take a walk around the airport?” he asked, already heading for the door to the lounge. “Get some air? Stretch these legs? I think I’m losing circulation to my feet in these things.”

“Sure,” Thomas agreed, practically jumping out of his seat at the invite. “It’s stuffy in here.”

It wasn’t, but Rick let it slide. He held the door open for his friend, sending a quick ‘okay’ sign behind his back towards Nuzo and TC, letting them know he had this one.

The airport was crowded, but not claustrophobically so. The concourse was packed with people waiting for food and flights, the enormous floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the tarmac for people to watch incoming and outgoing flights making the crowd tolerable.

Except for the part where people stared at them as they walked around.

It had nothing to do with who they were – Rick doubted that many people really watched the news. But the military dress uniforms _were_ eye catching. Something that he never minded in the past, but now felt like he was under a microscope. He found himself walking closer than necessary to Thomas, studying the ceiling with closer intensity than it probably warranted.

“I don’t think I can take this for another six weeks,” Thomas said, so quietly Rick almost missed it. Rick hadn’t been paying all that much attention, preoccupied with his own feelings of being under a microscope, but now that he actually _looked_ at Thomas, he wasn’t looking so hot.

The damage done by the Taliban was a slow recovery. Damage done by raging infections and Thomas’s own recklessness was even slower. Long walks winded him still, but now Magnum was looking positively gray.

“I know…I know what we did was _important_ ,” Thomas said softly. “But…I don’t want to keep reliving it. Letting people ask us like it’s some part of a movie, or somehow _entertaining_. And the more I try to convince myself that these people…” he gestured absently with a flick of his hand that made him wince. “They’re the reason why it should be worth it, the more I keep thinking of that press release, and the more…the more I _hate it_.” The more he hated _them_.

Rick considered it for a long moment before replying, trying to channel his inner TC to find something that might actually _mean_ something. “We took an oath to stand against all threats, foreign _and_ domestic. We signed up to _fight_ for them. Not to _suffer_ for them. You don’t owe them more than you’ve given.”

Thomas shrugged like he didn’t believe him but was too tired to argue. The higher ups made the press tour a non-optional request. As long as they were still in, they were supposed to ‘obey the orders of those appointed over them’.

What was irritating was that Thomas used to have no problem telling the chain to get bent when needed. Or just pretending like he didn’t hear them in the first place. He even said some unpleasant things to the Taliban holding them prisoners, but now…now he just didn’t seem to have it in him to complain.

Like someone had snuffed that spark.

“But first things first – I’m getting out of this monkey suit.” He veered abruptly into the clothing store, boasting hoodies with ‘I heart NYC’ in every color imaginable and Yankees and Mets gear stacked to the ceiling. He almost gagged when he saw the outrageous pricing, but hey – he had back pay for a year and a half of hazardous duty coming his way. He could afford it.

They were supposed to stay in uniform while traveling, according to the military.

Well, they could go fuck themselves, Rick thought darkly. If he was gonna be gawked at, it was gonna be because people thought he was an overcompensating tourist – not a Marine who just returned from hell.

“Here,” he tossed Thomas an overpriced t-shirt. “Take that. I’ve never been more appreciative of airlines catering to the idea that at least half their customers have lost all their stuff in customs, but I am getting out of this uniform, and so are you.”

Thomas stared blankly at the plain black shirt in his hands. Rick watched as he carefully traced scarred fingertips over the soft fabric, touching at the collar before fingering the sleeves that would only come to just past his upper arm.

“It’s softer than dress whites,” he conceded. He almost headed for the changing room before he stopped, glancing back the racks. “I need something with sleeves,” he pointed out hesitantly.

Rick nodded his chin towards the display of hoodies. “Take your pick. Personally, I dig the pink one, so if you’re not down for looking like twinsies, pick a different color.”

Thomas laughed at that. Rick had never been ‘conservative’ when it came to civilian clothes – mostly because it annoyed everyone else, but as more than one woman had told him – ladies liked a daring man with more color in their wardrobe than that of Johnny Cash.

Their obscenely expensive clothing bought and tags ripped off, they headed back towards the lounge where TC and Nuzo were probably beginning to wonder where exactly they wandered off to.

Rick’s stepfather once told him ‘clothes make the man’, and for the most part, Rick flatly ignored him. But the change in Thomas was…tangible.

Dressed in jeans which cost more than a car rental, shoes better served for a teenager on a skateboard but were the only ones soft enough to accommodate sensitive scar tissue, and a hoodie two times too big for him, Thomas actually looked… _relaxed_.

No one was staring at him. No one even batted an eye as they walked past them – not even the ones who’d openly stared at the dress uniforms not twenty minutes earlier.

It was like they were invisible.

For the first time in a year and a half, no one paid any attention at all to them. Not to demand questions of them, not to decide who they were going to take away to the Pit, not to mock from behind bars, not to question whether they’d followed the doctor’s advice or if they’d eaten anything that day.

Nobody cared.

And.

It.

Was.

 _Marvelous_.

“Like a magic cloak,” Thomas half whispered in awe. He still tugged at the long sleeves of the sweatshirt, but they were long enough he could actually pull the ends over his hands, hiding the scars completely.

It also made him look like he was fifteen.

But there was a kindling light in those dark, expressive eyes, and that was all that Rick cared about.

“Told you,” he teased gently, opening the door back to the lounge.

There was an indignant squawk of abject betrayal when TC saw them in civilian clothes.

“Really, guys?” TC gaped, a hand of mock betrayal going to his chest. “You gonna do a brother like that?”

Rick huffed. “Like we would leave you hanging.” He tossed a bag of clothes at the pilot, who caught them deftly in one hand before peering suspiciously inside. “No, I didn’t get you pink. We decided yellow was more your color anyway.”

“What in the hell is this?” TC demanded, yanking out a bumblebee yellow button up. “TM, is this your doing?”

Thomas shrugged innocently. “There’s a limited selection in the big and tall in an airport.”

TC scowled without anger. “Sure.”

“Nah, the kid’s right – you had your pick of that or lime green. I don’t know why they think a 6’2”, 240 pound man needs to be _more_ noticeable, but it’s what you get,” Rick defended, even as Thomas shot another scowl his way at the mention of age.

“Nothing for me?” Nuzo asked. “I see how it is.”

“Your wife and kid are coming to pick you up in like an hour – don’t pretend like Lara and Jake aren’t going to have a change of clothes,” TC pointed out. “Watch the youngin’s – I’m getting out of this clown suit.”

Before Nuzo could protest, TC was out the door with a speed that belied his size.

Nuzo shook his head, then quickly darted his gaze back to Thomas who was looking out the floor to ceiling window at the parking lots, not paying them any attention. He met Rick’s gaze, cocking his head to one side, questioning.

 _How’s our boy_?

Rick held a hand out and teetered it back and forth. _Not great. But not terrible_.

“Any word on our hurry up and wait status?” he asked aloud. Their flight had been bumped back in Dubai – they arrived two and a half hours ahead of schedule, and Lara and Jake had to drive up from Virginia Beach to pick Nuzo up. The others were left waiting – as per usually with the military – until someone filed paperwork to get them a ride. Their escort was supposedly off conversing with the USO representatives, but that was over an hour ago, and Rick not so secretly hoped they’d been forgotten.

“No news yet,” Nuzo answered, glancing at his phone.

Having phones again was just weird now. How fucking handy would it have been to just reach into a back pocket and call for help?

TC practically kicked in the door when he returned, grinning like an idiot, holding his arms above his head like the statue of Adonis. “ _I can move my arms again_ ,” he crowed. He rolled his massive shoulders, relishing the freedom of movement out of the restrictive uniform. He pulled at the hem of the large shirt. “You know what, I ain’t even mad about the color. I look fantastic. I’m getting more of these when I get…”

The word they all dreaded died in his throat.

 _Home_.

The only one who even had one was Nuzo, and even that came with its own perils. Trying to readjust after deployment was hard enough on married couples. Readjusting after… _everything_ …seemed like an unwinnable purgatorial task.

“I guess this is just a temporary patch job, huh.” TC faltered. He glanced down at the bag that now held his carefully folded uniform. “We’re going to have to get changed again as soon as the guards – escorts – come back.”

Thomas flinched at the word _guards_ , his shoulders coming up quick and sharp as he ducked his head, automatically making himself smaller than he already was. Somehow, it was made worse by the oversize sweatshirt – perhaps because it made him look even younger than he already did.

Nuzo had mentioned going to Hawaii back in Bagram, when Thomas quietly admitted he wasn’t ready to go home. But none of them had anything set up in Hawaii, either. Not for another six weeks, at least. The older man had reached out to Robin Masters, hoping the former journalist would be willing to help out the man who’s life made him a millionaire that owned half the island, but he’d only reached a very polite but very firm assistant who informed him that Mr. Masters was very busy on world tour, but she would pass along the message but couldn’t guarantee when he would be able to return the call.

“First of all, if they want me back in uniform, they’re going to have to wrestle me back into it,” Rick declared, crossing his arms over the Yankees emblem on his shirt. “And I plan to go out like a honey badger on meth.”

TC raised a questioning eyebrow at the metaphor but shrugged one shoulder in agreement. “Yeah. I can see that.”

“What if…”

All three heads turned to Thomas.

The younger man had one palm up against the window, fingers splayed out on the cold glass as it fogged around his hand. But he wasn’t looking up. He was looking down at the parking lot. At the rental car return lot.

They waited patiently.

“What if…we ran away?” Thomas asked, voice hesitant and barely above a whisper. “What if we didn’t wait around for them to decide _for_ us? What if…what if we just _left_. We could just... _go_. Anywhere. Anywhere we wanted to.”

He shot a glance over his shoulder back at the group that was so cautiously hopeful, the first _real_ spark back in his eyes since last September – and Rick realized he would’ve agreed to anything that kept that look on his friend’s face.

“I’m down,” he said immediately, before glancing back at TC. “Could use a pilot though.”

“Hell, yeah.” TC tossed his bag to Nuzo who caught it one handed. “Cover for us?”

Nuzo smirked. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll get Lara to do it.”

* * *

Fortunately, LaGuardia had an overabundance of rentals available, and while Rick pointed out the flashy sports cars in the lineup, TC argued against being forced to sit in the back seat with his knees up his nose at any point of the trip.

“Then don’t sit in the back!” Rick protested, pointing out the sport car again.

“I am supposed to believe that you and Thomas aren’t even _once_ going to want to both be up front at the same time?” TC shot back and pointed to the SUV that looked like it would be better suited for a drive by or government agencies.

“What about this one?” Thomas asked.

The car had no business being there. It was almost fifty years old and completely out of place amongst the minivans and crossovers, but there it was – a 1968 Chevelle convertible, in mint condition.

“I think someone just parked it in the wrong spot, buddy,” Rick said. “I don’t think it’s a rental.”

Thomas leaned over the passenger side door, fishing into the glove box. “No, look,” he said, holding up a piece of paper. “It _is_ a rental. It’s from Auto Classics Enterprise, apparently.”

“It gets like six miles to the gallon,” TC pointed out. “We’ll need to refill twice before we even get out of the city.”

Rick glanced up at him. “You got somewhere you need to be?”

“Just stating facts, bro. Though…” he considered the front seat and back. “It _is_ pretty roomy.”

“It’s got class,” Rick agreed. “ _And_ leg room. Not to mention zero to sixty in six point four seconds.”

“We’re in downtown Queens, Orville. We’ll be lucky to see anything about 13 miles an hour until we get out of the city.”

“Why you always gotta be a negative Nancy, Theodore?” Rick asked, squinting up at the larger man before hissing: “Who hurt you?”

“I’m a _realist_ ,” TC corrected. “And one of us has to have at least one foot on the ground while you got your head up in the clouds.”

“There’s no roof,” Thomas interrupted, making both men stop mid argument. He looked sheepish, like he hadn’t meant to say anything aloud, but couldn’t take it back. “I’m just…sick of walls, you know? Of not being able to see out. We can get a different one, I just…” he shrugged, offering a faint echo of his normal Cheshire grin. “Something without a roof?”

Rick and TC glanced at each other. It’d been hard to deny Thomas anything even before they were captured – he was just that kind of guy. He called in a million favors, but he racked them and stacked them the same way some people stacked bodies. Everyone always owed Thomas because Thomas was always, _always_ giving something. Hard to deny became impossible – especially since lately, he asked very little. 

Rick sighed, held one hand out, palm flat and his other hand clenched in a fist on top. “On the count of three?”

“Nah,” TC grinned, giving Rick an affectionate shove. “You’re enlisted. I know your ass is broke, back pay or not. I got this.”

“That stings.”

“Not as much as your empty wallet.”

* * *

Poor investment or not, the car was what they needed. All of them, not just Thomas.

Rick was always a bit of a car fanatic – he liked anything that’s entire existence could be summed up with a robust _vrooooom_. And he could find one anywhere – no one was entirely sure how or where he’d drummed up a 1935 Rolls Royce in the middle of the Helmand province and most were afraid to ask.

TC appreciated anything with a solid engine and good mechanics under the hood that could accommodate his large frame.

Even the stop and go traffic of downtown New York couldn’t do anything to deter the animated conversation from the front seat.

“Isn’t this the car from _Dukes of Hazard_?” TC teased, easing the classic further out of the city while Rick had a minor coronary over _it most certainly was **not** , how could you spin such lies_?

He hadn’t been to NYC in decades, and he’d honestly forgotten how quickly the city disappeared once they were across the bridge. It didn’t exactly up and vanish in the blink of an eye, but as they crossed from New York into Jersey, the sky scrapers and towering apartment complexes with convenience stores and neon lights gave way to suburbia, the hill houses of the Palisades Parkway offering glimpses of the Hudson between the billion dollar homes as they cruised along to nowhere in particular. The million dollar homes became farm houses and ranches, vast expanses of green instead of concrete jungle and the rumble of steady traffic faded away to the occasional semi rig or farm truck. The roar of the wind dulled as they dropped from 60 to 30, winding their way deeper into the state forests of upstate Jersey and lower New York.

It was hard to believe that less than an hour from one of the largest cities in the US was rolling farm lands.

Shit, there were even _cows._

Rick scrolled continuously through the radio channels, changing the station as soon as an ad came on or he heard someone talking instead of music. “You know, you would think in a year and some change, someone would’ve come along with more talent than Justin Bieber.”

“Talent isn’t what makes that kid famous,” TC argued. “Pop music hasn’t been about the _music_ since the 70’s.”

Rick grumbled under his breath as he continued to tweak the dial back and forth before finally stopping on “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, cranking the volume several decibels.

TC shot him an incredulous look. “ _This_ is what you stop on? _This_ is what says bro trip to you?”

Rick smirked, putting both hands up in ‘white dude shuffle’ pose, the closest thing he could get to dancing while in the front seat of a car. “When men are confident enough to write songs about their friendships, then I’ll put those on – but until then, Cyndi has us covered.”

“You gonna sit there and deny, to my face, Queen’s ‘You’re My Best Friend’, or Bill Withers’s classic ‘Somebody to Lean On’?” TC demanded. “What about ‘You Got a Friend In Me’?”

“The theme song to _Toy Story_?! How is that better?”

“How is it _not_ better than an 80’s women power ballad? TM, back me up here!”

When Thomas didn’t respond, TC risked a glance in the rearview as Rick whipped around as if he expected Thomas to have vanished from the backseat while they were driving.

But he was still there, sitting in the middle of the bench seat. Head tilted back against the seat with his eyes closed behind his sunglasses, arms above his head as he played with the wind currents like his hands were paper planes, lost in his own little world.

The dark shadows under his eyes from months of sleepless nights were lost in the bold noon day sun, and his clean shaven face looked years younger without the stubble and lines from worry and illness.

A smile as wide as the sky above them plastered across his face.

For the first time in forever, Thomas looked…well, like _Thomas_.

“Play whatever you want, guys," Thomas said without looking up. His too-large sleeves pooled around his elbows, and he didn’t seem to care, despite the still healing scars plainly visible. “The sun is warm. The grass is green. Today is a _good_ day.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feel free to come find me on Tumblr @disappearinginq! I always like talking to new people, and you can always prompt your own Bingo slot.


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